17. Multiple Income Streams & Money Confidence with Ashley Stephens, PhD, LCSW-S

Taylor (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast. I'm Taylor, your host of the day. And today we're gonna be talking about money confidence, money messages and social work and multiple income streams, which I'm also very excited about with Dr. Ashley Stevens. ⁓ Yeah, introduce yourself and...
Tell everyone what you do and all that good stuff.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (00:30)
Yes, so I'm going to start off real quickly with everyone thinking that I'm insane because maybe I am a little insane. Dr. Stevens and my favorite question is that what do you do because I have many, many income streams that I love. So primarily very, very small amount of therapy, a couple of hours a week.
Taylor (00:45)
You do, you do.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (00:54)
a lot of hours of supervision where I provide supervision in five states for social workers who are provisionally licensed trying to become fully licensed in their states as a clinical social worker. ⁓ I supervise in those five states about what am I at like 15 to 20 people is about what I do per week. I do some
Taylor (01:16)
Okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (01:18)
Talking, training and those kinds of things at conferences around the world actually. I do retreats. So I train people in cultural competence in far-flung destinations as well because I believe that cultural immersion you have to be there to experience. ⁓ And then just kind of generally ⁓ consulting some government contracting. I teach a supervision class.
in the state of Texas and I sell some clothes for fun. I think that's it.
Taylor (01:53)
That is a long list of things and I am really excited to get into all of that. ⁓ I think I want to start with just your money story early in your career as a new social worker. Were you confident with talking about money as a new social worker? What were the messages that you were hearing in school? And yeah, take us back.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (02:16)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah.
So I'll start with, I guess context matters, right? Systems matter. So I went to grad school and actually I grew up in southern rural poor Appalachia. I'm from Asheville, North Carolina. ⁓ And I went to school in East Tennessee, which was an amazing school, but like smaller, more local, kind of homegrown and
Part of that I think informed not only how I grew up, but also how I grew up in social work thinking about and talking about money. ⁓ It was not a thing. We did not talk about how you were going to get your job, what you should get, what you should shoot for, what the salary ranges were going to be. But one of the things which was so impactful for me in my career is literally the first job. So I got on, I knew
what I wanted and I knew what I was worth and I think it's just having a strong mother and growing up poor and her like battling even without education, without resources, without those things. She really ⁓ worked hard and she had an amazing career that she shouldn't have had with her education, ⁓ getting a GED in high school and things. But
Taylor (03:30)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (03:43)
So I exited grad school and I was like, you know, I know I kind of have a range of numbers. And for me, because I'm super transparent about this, that number in 2011, so it's a bit different now, was 50,000. I was like, I'm not taking anything under 50 grand. That will help me pay off my student loans. It will help me like launch well. And I was the maybe the last person in my class of maybe 20 or 30 to get a job.
Taylor (03:54)
Okay.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (04:12)
I didn't get one. graduated in May. I didn't get one until September. And part of that was because I saw nearly everyone that was actually my close friends getting jobs in Tennessee. And the number was 27,000.
Taylor (04:28)
⁓ my gosh.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (04:29)
Yes,
multiple people and I, know, ⁓ a specific type of work. So there's a lot of like kind of in the in mountains and in the in the woods, there's these like programs for kids and teens and things to get them outdoors, to get them away from their home environments, you know, and that's what some of these programs were. They were starting masters, educated people at twenty seven thousand. And to fast forward since then,
Taylor (04:43)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (04:58)
I have basically been double the income of those individuals throughout the past now working on 15 years. So that not that I'm special, smarter, more educated, better trained, same, same, but I knew that I was not going to take the first thing because it was the first thing. I was going to wait and hold out for something that I felt was actually livable, survivable.
Taylor (05:07)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (05:26)
And within that was that the VA is where I got my first job. And within what six or seven years, I was nearly at six figures. you know, and those folks aren't haven't necessarily ever gotten to that place or not yet. So that's just the most kind of salient thing for me when it comes to money and like knowing what you're worth.
Taylor (05:35)
Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's amazing that you were, you kind of grew up with that. Just, I don't know, that passion and that fire to be like, no, I'm not going to accept that. ⁓ Yeah. Do you feel like what kind of money conversations were happening in grad school? Do you remember? I mean, you said nothing, but like, were there negative messages or was it just silent?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (06:09)
Yeah.
think, you know, it's funny, I do now think that they were negative because I disagree inherently. But at the time, you know, I think you hear the canned like, we're not in it for the money. That's not what this is about. If you are in it for the money, maybe see yourself out of the profession because you've like got the wrong impression or the wrong understanding of what it is we do here. So, you know, it wasn't like they were like,
Taylor (06:39)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (06:42)
y'all are terrible people or money is awful or any of that, but it was very much this idea that like, this is not the focus. This is not the goal. The goal is to be a good clinician and to be a good social worker. And so it was kind and it was a get where they were coming from. But now I'm like to my supervisees, I say that thing you may have heard, you're not in it for the money and that is a resounding and in surround sound.
Taylor (06:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hehehehehe
Dr. Ashley Stephens (07:13)
That is not what we're doing here. That is not how I supervise. That's not how I train people or educate people. We're not describing to that belief system and we're not doing that.
Taylor (07:13)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
We're not talking about, yeah, we're not. Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. I just got a message from a social worker who graduated last month and he said that during their commencement ceremony, the Dean said, we're not in it for the income. We're in it for the outcome. This is 2025 and you, what you were in school 20, what 2000, 2011. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (07:37)
Mm.
Yes. Yes.
11. Yeah. ⁓
Taylor (07:52)
2009 to 2011 and we're still kind of sharing these messages to social workers and like you were saying they they paint it in a way where it's like
we're supposed to be focusing on the clients and how we can be great as social workers and, and to do that, to be a good social worker, for me to show it for my clients, for me to show up as, as the social worker that I want to be at work, to be the, the wife I want to be the sister, friend, all of those things too. Financial wellness is paramount in me being able to feel just
a lot of things, not stressed, you know, not worried about money and just, ⁓ feeling secure. And yeah, I mean, like we see the stress that our clients go through when they're worrying about their money. And yet there isn't this kind of conversation in school about how it can impact the clinician, but that doesn't make sense.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (08:37)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
there's one of the things that I feel like maybe it wasn't in this exact language, but kind of how I took it and put it on was like, we have to meet the clients in the trenches. ⁓ And the trenches being poverty, struggle, ⁓ unwell, you know, meeting them where they are almost takes on this like synonymous, like I'm with them where they are.
Taylor (09:14)
Mm-hmm.
ooo ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (09:29)
And that
is, I think, an undercurrent. and, you know, I'm just a very blunt person. So the things that I talk to my supervisees, I have a few supervisees of color. I identify as indigenous. ⁓ I talk about it as systems of oppression that are keeping us as primarily female and granted the majority white. But like these things have been created to keep us in place.
Taylor (09:50)
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (09:58)
And I won't align with that level of thinking. So absolutely not. Absolutely not. And especially for me as someone who tries to be anti-racist and thinking about things of these levels of systemic oppression and things like that, I can't in good faith tell my people that they belong in poverty.
Taylor (10:03)
We're not subscribing.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (10:25)
And that I can't tell my supervisees that look to me as a mentor and as a role model that like, well, all your worth is what someone else tells you your worth. And I think that that message then translates naturally for me into, well, how do I keep you the safest humanly possible? And to me, that answer is a single word and it's diversification.
Taylor (10:26)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (10:52)
If you're
putting all of your eggs in one basket, and I don't care even if that basket is a super lucrative basket, I get a little nervous for you because what happens when the big beautiful bill cancels Medicaid and Medicare or people can no longer afford in 2025 to afford things like feel like luxury, which is mental health care often first. ⁓ So all of the people and not that like you shouldn't be scared. It's a scary time, but
Taylor (10:59)
Yeah.
Ugh.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (11:21)
that when you have diversified your buckets of money, ideally you feel a little less scared because you're like, okay, that string got a little thinner, I'm going to go pull on this one and I increase that. So therefore I'm better or back to doing okay again. So to me, that's what I really hit home with my supervisees and it comes out of your greatest form of revolution and fighting back is being well.
Taylor (11:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (11:52)
And I think sometimes our field doesn't prioritize. You know, we talk about the baths and the candles and the scented blah blah blah. Like that's great. I get a massage every month. I like I love it. And also, it's not it.
Taylor (11:58)
The massage is, yeah. Me too. I do too. That's not, it's not going to cure my
stress and burnout. and if I'm feeling financially stretched, like that's. Yeah. What I'm curious about your kind of first exploration into another income stream. So you were at the VA.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (12:09)
No, no.
Yes.
Yeah. Crap.
Here's crazy time again. So when I was working, gosh, okay, back then I was probably at, I'm going to say about 70k a year. And Asheville is quite expensive, but I, at this point, I believe I already had a house. I bought a house with my partner at the time. I was okay from all external kind of viewpoints, but
Taylor (12:31)
Hehehehehe
Dr. Ashley Stephens (12:57)
I didn't feel like I was making more than I needed, which is a very comfortable place for me as a child who grew up in poverty. Like making it is not enough to me and not like I don't need like coffers full. I'm not like Scrooge McDuck. I don't need an underground basement full of coins. But like if I, know, and I worked in the homeless program. So one of the things we said about homelessness is like most
Taylor (13:07)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (13:24)
Americans are one paycheck away from poverty. So how do I get a few more paychecks away from that inevitability or whatever happens? I at one point, I was at the VA 40 hours a week. I got a job at Barnes and Noble for 20 hours a week. Also love that place. ⁓ Discounts on books. Thank you. Yes, please. ⁓ I sold makeup.
Taylor (13:26)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (13:54)
Badly, but I sold makeup. I dog sat, house sat, ⁓ baby sat.
Is that my only job? ⁓ and I taught at a local university.
Taylor (14:09)
Wow, okay, okay
Dr. Ashley Stephens (14:11)
I think that's six. So
and to me, like it was this like I get something out of these. I'm not going to do something that I'm not getting something out of. ⁓ The teaching was, well, maybe I'll maybe I want to be a professor one day. I knew that I wanted to get my doctorate. Maybe let's see how that goes. I didn't like it. So that was good to know. But, you know, I was doing each of these things like I love literature. I love reading.
Taylor (14:21)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (14:40)
Barnes and Noble is an amazing place. It wasn't very much per hour, obviously, because, you know, that's just not their focus, but I loved it. I had so much fun talking to people about literature and what they were reading. I, you know, dog sitting, I got to hang out with pups and like stay in these beautiful houses in the woods. And, you know, that was like a vacation from life, like regularly. ⁓ It's just like doing, I think.
Taylor (14:54)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (15:05)
To start off this process of diversifying and figuring out what you may want to do, you may have to try out a few different things. I don't recommend doing them all at once like I did. That was a little intense, but what do you know? ⁓
Taylor (15:18)
I was gonna say, that sounds, that sounds,
that sounds like a lot.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (15:24)
I didn't think so. I was having a blast.
Taylor (15:26)
But it didn't feel like it a lot to you. didn't, yeah.
Yeah. And that's, and that's the thing. It's like some people can have all these different things going on, these different jobs and it, and it feel great and really be like filling them up. But others would be like, I would be so burnt out. So yeah, you just gotta kind of find your sweet spot. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (15:48)
Yes, yeah.
And now I probably have six or 10 or 12 jobs, but I'm not doing any of them for 40 full hours, which is also a key. ⁓ you know, I think there's also like, my urge to get a lot of jobs was out of the trauma of poverty. You don't have to, you don't have to do that. Maybe therapy was the place I should have gone instead. ⁓ But like, you know,
Taylor (15:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
You
Dr. Ashley Stephens (16:18)
Now, 15 years past that, you know, all of that, I still have a lot of jobs, but it is because rather than a fear of like what happens if something happens, it's more out of how can I shift my brain? How can I use different parts of my brain? How can I grow? How can I learn? How can I, you know, if I'm doing something for eight hours straight,
Taylor (16:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (16:43)
I'm not doing it for eight hours. I've done it for three or four and then I'm so distracted or I'm like off trying to do something else. So like for me, my brain works best when I give it kind of these different things to focus on throughout a day, which has naturally led to, I do, you know, a therapy for an hour and then I do supervision for two hours and then I take a break and I go for a walk and then I come back and I do some consulting or teaching or training or whatever. And then the hour after that, I
Taylor (16:50)
Right. ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (17:11)
you know, play with my pups. And then the hour after that, it's always kind of constantly like doing something a little different to keep excited, passion, active love for this field.
Taylor (17:22)
Yeah,
yeah, no, that's awesome. How do you manage your time and energy and all of that with all of the different things that you have going on? And I also want to say, it seems like, you know, there are some times when people are in these really poor paying jobs and they have to get another job because they need more money. And I think...
That, I just want to say, that's not the conversation that we're having in terms of if you're not making enough, you need to start exploring other income streams. ⁓ I think it seems like from your perspective, it's just kind of having this diversification of income in case one...
Dr. Ashley Stephens (17:53)
Yes.
Taylor (18:10)
you know, maybe you get laid off or your hours are reduced or whatever, but also to maintain this kind of creativity in your life and, and, and fun. And like, you get to do all these different things. You get to teach people and provide therapy and do these retreats. Like that sounds awesome. So I just wanted to, I just wanted to say that, like, this is not
Dr. Ashley Stephens (18:13)
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (18:33)
You need to side hustle your way to being financially well, because that really doesn't make sense. I don't think that's possible. ⁓ so yeah, but yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (18:37)
Yeah. No. Yeah.
Yeah, yes. And there
is, I think if my motto in therapy and also in supervision, if it was anything, it would be like, hashtag break up with your bad instead of boyfriend, it's job. ⁓ A lot of people quit when I'm on board because I do have like, I don't suffer bad job fools. I just don't.
And I think that also maybe it's generational, like my parents were loyal to their jobs to a fault. They were staying in that same company no matter what, even when it treated them poorly, even when it paid terribly, even when interpersonal it was toxic. And to me, like that message subconsciously was if it's not serving me, I'm out. I gotta go. This is not it. So I think
Taylor (19:11)
Yeah.
Yeah. 100 % agree.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (19:39)
Yeah, so, and I think
Taylor (19:40)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (19:41)
one of the things to me, you know, what research says is that there, and my doctorate is in industrial and organizational psychology, which a lot of people go, huh, which is the psychology of people at work. What makes them happy? What makes them sad? What makes them stay? What makes them leave? Hiring, firing, evaluations, like anything related to how people work is what my degree is in.
So the research around what makes someone happy, there is one thing and it isn't money, but there is ⁓ a bell curve with money and happiness and life satisfaction at work. And there is a level at which we're happier. And more than that, what we see is like, we're talking about like CEOs who are making like $5 million a year or whatever.
Taylor (20:29)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (20:36)
The work is really hard and it's really stressful and they're expected to be on all the time and to do kind of amazing things, subhuman things that like aren't actually possible. No amount of money is going to make you happy if that's the case, right? So that's that, okay, we're making a lot but we're not getting any happier. And there is a level with which just throwing your boss, throwing money at you is not going to make you any happier. But...
Taylor (20:51)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (21:03)
a good amount of money gets us to the top of that bell curve and we're like, all right, we can survive this. But the one thing that makes people happiest at work is actually autonomy. I get to pick when I do that, how I do that, what I do. And that autonomy is what I'm kind of referencing in. It's not side hustle to survive. It's side hustle your way to a diversified autonomous
life. You pick what you want to do. You pick when you want to do it. You pick how hard, where in the world you do it from and those people are typically a lot happier just by nature of being able to pick.
Taylor (21:34)
Ooh, I like that. Mm-hmm. ⁓
Yeah.
Yeah. And you're there. How are you feeling? You happy? Yeah?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (21:53)
Yeah, yeah, yes.
I say it every time I talk. I love my life. I have the most fun and I'm not a genius. I'm not independently wealthy. I don't have a rich uncle on the side who funded my career. This is hard work, dedication and drive wrapped up in
Taylor (22:04)
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (22:20)
doing whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want to. And I didn't get here. I mean, I have privileges, obviously many of them, but I believe wholeheartedly that I am no one special and that anyone can get where I am if you want to. if 18 jobs isn't it, that's okay. But like I do a lot of that mentoring around like, what is your heart's
Taylor (22:33)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (22:47)
passion and convincing you that you're worth it to go after and get it. And if that doesn't serve you any longer, I want to leave you with many, many, many skills that you can then translate and do something else with and try that out. The world is your oyster and social work truly is the way I got here. It's not my doctorate. It is not anything else. It is social work that allowed me to get to
where I am in life and the joy that I have every single day to live it.
Taylor (23:23)
That is so awesome and really inspiring to hear because I think it's not often that we hear these days social workers that are like, I love my job. mean, I have a few in my life, so I feel I'm happy about that. But yeah, I think the general just ⁓ the vibe of our profession, which is unfortunate, is just.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (23:41)
Yeah.
Taylor (23:51)
we're most of us are struggling. Most of us are unhappy with with what we're doing. So I think it's it's encouraging and inspiring to hear people like you to share that ⁓ you're you're loving it. What kind of things do you say or encouragement to supervisees who are struggling in their job? And, you know, I know that people can have these
Dr. Ashley Stephens (23:55)
Yes.
Taylor (24:20)
feelings of not wanting to abandon their clients, not wanting to leave their organization high and dry or, or whatever else. There's other things, you know, that where we just feel this sort of responsibility and we don't want to leave. What do you, what do you say to them? ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (24:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor (24:44)
Deep sigh.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (24:45)
It's so frustrating. ⁓ I think, and this, this you'll see these themes in like, in in client work too. So some of this is probably going to feel like some of the things we say to clients, but the the way that we have set up social work, education, training, experience, internships, practicums, whatever you want to call it, is free labor.
Taylor (25:10)
Yep.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (25:11)
We are a profession built off of, know, and no shade to Ms. Jane Adams. ⁓ She was, she had resources. She could do what she did because she had resources. So our profession started with the roots of rich white women who had the money to play around with giving a crap about other people. And yay, I'm so glad you started our profession, but.
Taylor (25:17)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (25:37)
The reality today is that most of us are struggling. Most of us have been taught that we should work for cheap or free. ⁓ You should give your life to this career. there was a every year at the VA, maybe this was just the VA I worked at, but they did this like employee party week thing. There were sports and like people would compete in sports. don't know. ⁓ And there would be a cookout normally.
Taylor (26:03)
Hehe.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (26:06)
And I remember getting a water bottle. was like one of those infusion water bottles and you could put like fruit or whatever in. And it said something to the tune of this is not just a job to me. It's a way of life. And I went, you can have that back. the main guy and like these are like the heads of the hospital, like really like up there people. And I was like,
Taylor (26:24)
Hmm.
No thank you.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (26:34)
I don't agree. And I think that's a terrible message to tell your employees. I should want to be here. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm chained to be here. And so when I talk to people about, you know, the idea of abandonment or I'm going to let people down or whatever is there's a few things. One is read to me what it says in the code of ethics about termination.
Taylor (26:43)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (27:04)
and abandonment of clients, what does it actually say? Because we have, there's a lot of misinformation out there about what abandonment means. And if you don't know what the Code of Ethics says about it, it says something to the tune of ghosting them, basically. Not, I'm not allowed to quit and refer them other places, not I got cancer or I got a car wreck and couldn't call them.
Taylor (27:12)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, right.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (27:33)
now I abandoned. No babe, you were unconscious. You're allowed to like skip out on a day of work by being in a horrific accident. That's not abandonment of a client. Abandonment is the willful and intentional ghosting of your clients. We're not doing that, hopefully. And if you are, stop, stop doing that. ⁓
Taylor (27:50)
Mmm.
Stop doing that. But yeah, but
yeah, when you're trying to put your well-being first and exploring other options that will pay you more, which I want to give everyone permission, it's okay to leave a job only because you need more money. Yeah, that, yeah, it's okay. ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (28:01)
Yes. Yes.
Yep, please do. Break up with that bad boyfriend.
you
Great.
Taylor (28:21)
It's okay. It's okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (28:23)
Cut! Babes. Hey.
All day. All day. I've been here for hours. Okay.
Taylor (28:34)
You're like, course.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (28:36)
little tails flopping around in the back.
Taylor (28:38)
⁓
Let's see, where should we start? Okay.
Yeah, so it's fine to leave. can... We kind of went... I asked you a question and then I totally switched the topic, but I'm going to go back to ask managing your time, your energy, how are you doing that with all of the things that you have going on?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (28:58)
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. ⁓ So to me personally, that looks like never working more than a few hours in a row. Taking big old beefy breaks in the middle of hard work, especially if it's therapy, especially if it's emotional labor that I'm doing. I'm going to schedule, because I can, because I've set it up that way, I'm going to schedule breaks, walks, getting outside to see the sun.
Taylor (29:18)
Hmm?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (29:37)
playing with my dogs, who keep me very grounded and mindful. I am going to delegate and lean on my people, my friends, my family, my coworkers, my colleagues, to help me carry the load. And I'm going to ensure that I have set up, if something isn't working and I'm feeling like, you know,
I'm feeling a little crunchy, I'm feeling a little cynical, I'm feeling like what I'm doing doesn't matter or whatever, then I'm going to actually sit down, step back and reevaluate and do some deep work around that to say like, okay, something here isn't serving, what do I need to tackle? Where do I think this is coming from? Why do I think it's coming? And, you know, one of the things that I tell a lot of my supervisees is this idea about burnout, right? You work...
Taylor (30:16)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (30:32)
hard and let's say you see 500 clients a year you're just like burn it like you're doing it and this person that I was talking to is in an IOP PHP so there's a lot of turnover there's a lot of people all at once you know but let's just say it's an easy number and I can math this hard so you see 500 people a year and you burn out and you leave the field in three years you have affected and ripple affected 1,500 people now
Taylor (30:42)
Okay.
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Dr. Ashley Stephens (31:00)
Let's use that same example and say you take your time, you're intentional and a little slower and a little more methodical and you take care of yourself and you only see 200 people this year but you have a career, an epic career that spans 25 years.
Taylor (31:12)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (31:19)
How many people is that that you have affected? And to me, that's also kind of leads to my, I was going to say argument. I don't think I have to fight anyone on it, but my urge for people to become supervisors, because now think about you see 200 people a year when you're doing all clinical work. Now let's say you see 20 supervisees.
Taylor (31:21)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (31:48)
and only a hundred clients a year, but those 20 supervisees see their 200. Look at your network, look at your legacy, look at how many people you've affected by being an amazing, good quality supervisor. knowing my place in that machine and knowing that I am working really, really hard to ensure that there are
Taylor (31:52)
scene. Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (32:16)
well taken care of, hopefully a limited amount of burnout, good quality supervisees that are then serving all of these people also helps me do that step back and go, you know, even if I haven't done any clinical work this week, I know my people have, and I know that they have changed the lives of innumerable clients.
Taylor (32:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (32:44)
And that also helps with this, like, where's my place in the world? And how do I know that I'm like doing what I should? I get a little bit of a break from that because I'm, training other people who are going to take my torch and go further and run with it and do so much more than I could have done alone.
Taylor (32:52)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's really cool. You live in what state? Okay, you're in Texas and you said you are supervising people in five states total or six. Okay. I think, you know, there are people out there who would love to kind of explore this multi-state supervision.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (33:08)
I'm in Texas. Yes.
Yes, five, yeah.
Yeah.
Taylor (33:31)
Let's talk about that a little bit and how that has evolved. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (33:33)
I love it. Yes.
So I'm going to talk about first and hopefully short stories, but first I'm going to talk about current state and then I'm going to talk about where I think we're going. So current state, you have to get a license, a full clinical license, whatever the term they use in your state is, in every state that you intend to supervise in from the like 20 that I know about and probably all of them.
Taylor (33:53)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (34:00)
So you can't just, I'm a supervisor in Texas. I think I should supervise in Arkansas. Let me the board is going to laugh you out of the room. getting a license in all of those states actually came first for me for clinical work. I worked in a virtual at the time. I worked in a virtual ⁓ nationwide mental health. ⁓ wasn't it was like a I don't even know one of the startup companies, but they had been around a while. So not to name names. So
Taylor (34:09)
Right.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (34:30)
That required me to get licensed in five states and that's what actually kicked off my multi-state jamboree. Yes, sure did. It was amazing. Yeah, yes. And I actually got six in that process because I come from North Carolina. That's where most of my career has been. I moved to Texas for more opportunities and boy did I find them.
Taylor (34:37)
That's fascinating. And because they pay for it, don't they? Interesting.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (34:57)
But I was in Texas at the time, but I worked for the federal government. So you don't have to get a state license because you're like grandfathered for whatever state you came from. So to join that company, I had to become licensed in the state I resided in. So I had two. Then they said, we're going to pay for four. And I was like, all right. And then I had clients move into two other ones. And that's kind of a balloon from there. I was up to 12 at one point. And one thing about me is like,
Taylor (35:07)
Okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (35:27)
I hate an intake more than I hate anything else. I don't like the will they won't they they ghosted me. Where are they? I'm tracking them down like money all of that. I'm like if I can keep someone I know and and enjoy working with and is working hard. I don't care if they move to the moon. I am sticking with them like I will do it. So got licensed because of clients and then I realized
In the state of Texas, you're required to do a 40 hour supervision course to become a council approved supervisor. So with that, I was like, OK, no other state requires this level of chaos in order to become.
Taylor (36:07)
No, that's a lot of hours. I think in Oregon they
require 20. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (36:12)
Yeah, yeah. And so
that's what I did. And Oregon is one of my states that I supervise in. So what I did was I said, ⁓ Hi, Oregon, I have this Mondo supervisory course that I took. Will you count it? And all of the other four states that I supervise in said, absolutely, that's double or triple or 40 hours worth more than what we require. So that naturally was like, well, if I can easily get
Taylor (36:35)
Right.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (36:42)
all of these other states on board and I like doing supervision more, naturally that is something that kind of just took over. So current state, get a license, figure out what the supervision requirements to become a supervisor are, and then make sure that you're staying up to date on the state laws, rules, statutes, et cetera. Most of them are pretty similar.
⁓ But you want to make sure that before you lead someone else down the path, you have a really good understanding of what that path is in that individual state.
Taylor (37:14)
Yeah. One thing I'm curious about ⁓ some of these states because I had explored Washington and I'm curious if you ran into this. you know, Oregon requires 3000 and then maybe another state. Thinking about if the state that you're in that you have the license requires a lower amount than the state that you want.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (37:17)
future. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (37:40)
Did you have to acquire those hours or like how did you see that playing out? Because I would imagine all the states that you licenses, you know, when you were up to 12, that those hours requirements were totally different.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (37:48)
Yeah.
Yes. Yes. So part of what helped me is I had been licensed for so long when I started doing that. I was nearly at 10 years of being a fully licensed clinical social worker before I started the process. But what I encourage everyone, even if you're just moving and you're still in the provisionally licensed process, call the board, scour the website, search the website, but also call and talk to the board or email the board and say,
Taylor (38:10)
Okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (38:26)
Hey, this is my situation. Will you accept these hours or what? What do you want me to do to become fully licensed here or to supervise here? Many, many of the states that I was like, they tell me I have to take like Alabama. They were like, you're taking our course on the website. You're you're taking and I think it was six hours. I emailed them and I said, here's all of here's the table of contents from the 40 hours I did. Here's all of these things. Will you accept it? And they said, of course.
But the website was like, you absolutely have to take a course in Alabama. ask, you know, see. And if they say no, worse comes to worse. We have to do a couple of hours extra. But for being licensed for so long, many, many states have a provision of like, ⁓ you've been licensed over five years. You can get a license even when we require more hours than you. ⁓ Except for, in all honesty, our poor Florida friends.
Taylor (39:00)
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay.
fascinating.
Okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (39:26)
I,
it's so low for them. It's like 1500 hours. Nearly every state is 3000 or more. So that I have had them. I haven't had any successful Floridians who have come out of that and said like, you don't have to do any more hours. They nearly always require you to do more because it's just so low there for clinical hours. But I am not.
Taylor (39:30)
Okay.
Okay, okay. Are you licensed in California?
I, and, and I only asked that just for my own, for my own curiosity because I hear these things that it's so hard to get licensed in California, da da, and I don't really know the details of that, but I was just curious.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (40:01)
it's crazy.
It's crazy. ⁓ The ones that are absolutely no-goes for me are going to be California and New York ⁓ because the requirements like you're taking basically a whole other like I think California when I looked at it, I had a client living there and it was like 50 hours of CEs. And I was like, how like that's an entire other semester or year in a master's program to become licensed. Like I'm not doing that. ⁓ But
Taylor (40:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (40:30)
Other than that, the other 48 states generally have pretty decent requirements. you know, this also, you know, talking about the future state, this exactly plays into that, which is the social work compact. I'm so excited. And and just a point here, because I think I get a lot of questions about the compact. I my business partner is a psychologist who has CIPAC.
Taylor (40:41)
Yes, The compacts.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (40:55)
So I'm really, really familiar with how it works, at least on the psychology side. Ours is going to be a little bit different. Yes, since 2015, but it got like super going like 2019, 2020 with with COVID. But ours is going to be better. I said it better in a few ways. ⁓ We have a deep, deep well of money because the DOD is funding ours. So because
Taylor (40:59)
I've never heard of that. I didn't know that they had that. That's cool. OK.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (41:25)
military members move every few years at which is a huge problem, not only for their spouses who are trying to maintain jobs and whatever else, but as well for like therapeutic interventions and like having to like, okay, now I got to pick up, you know, and move my whole family and now I can't also see my clinician. So we have deep pockets and two is there's actually a residency requirement in SIPACT that you have to live in. No.
Taylor (41:31)
Yes.
Absolutely.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (41:53)
you have to be present physically at the time of the session in your home state. So let's say, for example, Texas is your home state that you registered your SIPAC with. Even if you're on vacation in Oregon, even if you're on vacation abroad, you're technically not allowed to be doing those therapeutic services, even when the client has always been in and is currently in Colorado.
That makes no sense to me. I think it's a quite silly rule, but it is part of their law. It is not part of ours. There is no provision that we have to be physically located there. But how does that change what I'm talking about with supervision, with therapy, those kinds of things? It opens us up. I think we're up to like 29 states or something. We will be able to do work with clients in those states. If your home state
Taylor (42:26)
Wow. Awesome.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (42:48)
is a dark blue state. If wherever your license is in it, you can then work with people in all of those states. Caveat, caveat. First caveat is that doesn't mean you can take their insurance and it doesn't mean that the state will allow you to do supervision. So we'll have to see what's on our side is one, there's just so many of us and we're so delightfully humongous when it comes to the workforce. So
Taylor (43:06)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (43:18)
Psychologists, mean, we outnumber psychologists, LPCs and LMFTs, I think, combined. So I think we have a lot more power to make those changes. I absolutely think insurance is going to have to come to a reckoning because right now there's residency requirements, right? You have to be in Pick State, Maryland in order to be on Blue Cross Blue Shield, Maryland and accept those clients. You have to be there.
Taylor (43:41)
Yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (43:43)
⁓ I think the compact is going to change. It has to. I don't see how it can keep doing what it's doing. And then secondly, I do think that our boards are going to have to come a little more in alignment with each other, particularly around licensing and supervision, hopefully.
Taylor (43:47)
Right.
Absolutely, absolutely agree. ⁓
Yeah, that would be so awesome. I think people really feel the restriction of the license and I think this can really open it up for people and benefit our community, our country. You know, we need it.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (44:05)
Yes.
Yes.
Absolutely. And I
just thought about this, the money piece. ⁓ Relevant, I know. ⁓
I and I've talked about this before with some of my supervisees. Let's say you get and I know Texas, Texas is Blue Cross Blue Shield is is fairly low. ⁓ So let's just say because you're not supposed to say exact numbers, let's say it's 90 dollars a session for a 60 minute session, 53 minutes and above. You and Texas isn't on it, so this not really yet relevant, but let's just pretend like it is in the compact.
I make $90 an hour, but Oregon, Blue Cross Blue Shield or Humana or whatever is much higher than that. $150. Let's just say on the conservative end, let's say Oregon, I make $150 an hour. Who would work in Texas for $90 if I... Makes no sense.
Taylor (45:18)
Right. Yeah. When they can work. Yeah.
In Oregon. Yeah. So that would hopefully give them some incentive to increase it. Ooh. That's fascinating. Mm-hmm. And I also, when you said, you know, we're not supposed to say numbers about the reimbursement, more just issues with, yeah.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (45:28)
Exactly. Yep. So that's my that's my utopia. I hope it happens. ⁓
Taylor (45:47)
That transparency with the insurance is super frustrating. Yeah, on all levels. Wow. Last thing, I mean, no, totally, right? I guess not last thing. One thing I want to talk to you about is this CEU course that you have through Texas. Okay. Let's talk about, oh, and I want to talk about your retreats. Oh, we do not have enough time, but.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (45:51)
Yep. Yep.
Yes, on purpose, intentional.
Yes.
Yeah.
I
Taylor (46:17)
Give us a quick, give us a quick and dirty on the, the scenes.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (46:21)
Yes, so that's easy to be quick and dirty about. I teach a social work supervision course for that 40 hours like I was talking about in Texas. ⁓ One of the gaps that I saw when I went through it was normally in Texas so far we have a kind of a mix between you do some readings, very dry articles in my opinion, you do some readings, you kind of like do self-study for like 16 of those hours.
And then you do a lovely zoom call for three days, eight hours a piece on camera over your weekend, which is exactly what you want to do when you've worked for five days in a row is one take off a Friday to do this and then spend Saturday and Sunday in class. So I partnered with someone who's been doing the LPC and LMFT version. It's the same requirement in Texas. Is that 40 hours?
Taylor (47:05)
Yeah.
gotcha.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (47:15)
So she was like, you know, I thought about social work, but it's required that a social work supervisor in the state be the teacher for that course. So was like, hey girl, I don't have enough going on. Sign me up. So we took a lot of her. Some of her content was actually the same for both, but we took a lot of that content. We made it more relevant for social workers and we launched. And so far, I think we're at something like 20, 25 people that have taken it. And it just started at the beginning of this year.
Taylor (47:23)
Mm-hmm.
my gosh.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (47:45)
And
it is what we, the gap that we saw was it's all virtual, it's all async. So you can take it, you have 90 days per state law, you can take it as slow or as fast as you wanna take it. There is no live interaction with me. You can if you're having trouble or you want to, Calendly, you can, but no one does. So they just get to pick after work, before work, after we put the kids to bed.
On the weekends, on holidays, whatever, you can do it as slow or as fast as you need to with none of that like exhausting zoom. Got to sit here and pay attention and like take, you know, participation and whatever. The state law doesn't need it, so we don't require it.
Taylor (48:30)
Wow, that's so interesting. So when you were done with creating the course, you reach out to the board and say, you know, hey, we have this, would you approve it for hours and
Dr. Ashley Stephens (48:41)
Yep. And it's
a twofer. Not only do you get to open up a supervision practice, which Texas puts out, ⁓ I think we're second highest of number of social workers. So we have a lot of social workers who need, especially because you don't think about this with Texas, but we do have such a rural population outside of the main four or five cities. You have quite rural. It is hours and hours to get to your next local kind of big city. So.
Taylor (49:04)
Right. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (49:07)
Virtual is something that Texas allows. So you can start your supervision practice, but also it's a 40 hour course. So you get 40 CEU hours that count for the board in this one thing that is, we think really reasonable and you get to like create a whole new income stream to boot.
Taylor (49:21)
That's awesome.
Yeah, wow, that's awesome. How much do you guys charge for that?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (49:33)
It's $600 for the course.
Taylor (49:35)
Okay. And how many modules? You know, are there like more than 10?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (49:40)
Lord. Yeah.
Sort of. So there's kind of buckets of like there's a ethics, there's a multicultural component where we talk about how do you set up your practice to be anti-racist, culturally competent, culturally humble. ⁓ We have pieces that talk about state law specifically, which is a requirement. So, you know, what are the reporting requirements? What did the law say about X, Y, or Z?
Taylor (49:46)
Okay.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (50:08)
⁓ we review, ⁓ kind of boundaries and, and like ethical situations around how is it, because I think sometimes people think like supervision easy peasy. And then you get in here and you're like, ⁓ that person is inappropriate. How do I correct them? That person is sleeping with their client. What do I do with that? That person is, ⁓ so anxious. They can't even function. That person just got fired from their job that, you know, there is, and hopefully that's rare, but like,
those things exist and your job is unfortunately, fortunately a gatekeeper for this noble and sacred profession. So we teach you about how to be a gatekeeper and to make sure that you are doing what you should on your end to make sure that appropriate people get into our field. ⁓ So yeah, and there's a few papers, there's a few like quizzes that you can't fail and things like that. And the piece de la resistance is a ⁓
Taylor (50:37)
Yeah, totally.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (51:07)
role play video where we make them do write a script and play out a very common situation that they will run into in supervision.
Taylor (51:17)
my gosh. Wow. I'm like, that just gives me, that just like makes my stomach sink thinking about the role plays that I had to do in grad school. But anyways, that sounds like an awesome course. So do you and the other person split, split the income or how is that, how is that split? You guys split?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (51:19)
Yeah, it's so fun.
Yes, yeah.
Love it.
Yeah.
Yes, so
I use her platform and she is like an SEO queen. So I was like, yay, I don't have to do any of that. I will happily split this with you 50-50. So I create all the content, I teach, I grade, I do all of that side. And she does the website, the marketing, the sales, the kind of platform that it's on, all of that jamboree.
Taylor (51:42)
Okay.
Awesome.
Yeah,
yeah, what platform do you guys use? ⁓ okay. I like that. I've taken a course through Podia before.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (52:00)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor (52:05)
Amazing. You are so cool. ⁓ Thanks so much for, thanks for coming on and sharing with us and being vulnerable and transparent and all the things. If anyone wants to find out more about you or chat with you, how can they do that?
Dr. Ashley Stephens (52:07)
amazing.
Not really. ⁓
Yes,
so I am one half of the crane and the bull. ⁓ So if you Google crane in the bowl and you image search it, it is a literal crane picking up a literal bowl. That's not us. ⁓ But ⁓ the crane in the bowl dot com is us. And for the supervision course, are you looking at it? Funny. It's like in India. I don't know. They had to like pick up this bowl. I don't know.
Taylor (52:39)
I'll try that.
I'm looking. ⁓ my gosh.
interesting.
Dr. Ashley Stephens (52:55)
and it gets a lot of hits
because it is up there in the rankings. It's so funny but the supervision course if you're in the state of Texas and you're a social worker it's swsupervisioncourse.com. You can also find the LPC and LMFT version for all of our friends who may be listening who are our brothers and sisters in those ⁓ counseling professions but the crane in the bull is us for everything else.
Taylor (52:58)
Yeah, my gosh, how interesting.
Yeah, awesome.
Awesome. Well, thanks so much and thanks everyone for listening. Please, know, rate, review, and all of the things on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts. And we'll be back in two weeks. Thanks so much.